What the Dickens?

So just how old is Charles Dickens' decrepit Miss Havisham meant to be? According to the author's own notes she was probably meant to be in her mid-50s.

When Martita Hunt (below with Jean Simmons) played the old girl, still clad in her wedding dress after being jilted years earlier, in David Lean's classic 1946 version of Great Expectations, the actress was 46.

Which is exactly what Helena Bonham Carter will also be when a starry new film version of the story is released next year.

Carter co-stars alongside Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane, Holliday Grainger, Ewan Bremner, Sally Hawkins, David Walliams, Jason Flemying and Tamzin Outhwaite with Jeremy Irvine - about to be seen in War Horse - as the hero, Pip.

Adapted by David (One Day, Starter for Ten) Nicholls, the director is Mike Newell whose work has ranged from Four Weddings and A Funeral to Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.